Refrigerator Box Stories

Big Bad Wolf, last seen wearing Granny’s nightcap, sails a derelict boat named Harley and reportedly escapes to Canada.

The inspiration for Little Red Riding Pants came from my father who suffered from mental illness. I realized even when I was a child he went in and out of a catatonic states and was becoming unreachable. I also knew if we walked together the soothing rhythm and sway of walking would open him up and he would begin to talk to me. Many nights he spent time walking with me downtown to the big zigzags that ran like hairpins up the face of the hill overlooking First Street. We raced up and down those zigzags; he, clumping along in his lace up work boots, pretending to lose the race to my two dollar Mary Janes. We didn’t care. We had fun.

I remember being thirsty for his words. He told me love was the most powerful emotion in the whole wide world. I remember wishing he would tell me more.

While I was still little, before his mind slipped away forever, he spent a lot of time reading me bedtime stories. With a wildly creative mind like his he couldn’t help but make many of them up as well. All the neighborhood kids loved him for his pranks, stories and, of course, Squeeko his (real)pet monkey. Kids didn’t know how much he suffered. Nor did it matter to them. There was no stigma. All they knew was he spent time with them. With him they were completely safe.

We lived across the alley from General Electric. Every week they put out tall refrigerator boxes in the alley for the trash men to take away. I assisted the trash men and hauled many of those boxes across the way to my back yard where we built super-deluxe refrigerator box forts. When the neighborhood kids caught word, they brought sleeping bags and flashlights. Then we waited, our faces all lit up, whispering until Dad appeared. Not that we saw him at first. We knew he had arrived when we heard the scratching — soot-blackened fingernails on the sides of the fort and a low “Mwoohahahahaha…” of his voice. Of course we squealed, pretended we were freaked out. He hunched into the shape of a “C” just inside the box opening and told stories and sang us songs.

In the Sixties and Seventies there was precious little help for those who suffered from mental illness, mainly primitively administered shock therapy, something that scared him to death. He told me so when I was just a girl. My audio book, Little Red Riding Pants’ Narrow Escape is a tribute to Real Dad, the Dad who sometimes held me close and spoke of love and stories, before his wonderful mind disappeared, irretrievable from an illness that robbed us all.